thawing the ice

i can't believe that i haven't written since january! that is both sad and embarassing. lots of stuff has been happening, none of it very condusive to writing - but that is something i really need to work on, and not only because of this venue.

i've been working, got a day job in customer service for a medical device company but havent freelanced since then - so i guess it's technically just a job and not a "day" job.

also, i started dating someone who is pretty amazing. who knew that could happen?

anywho - remember how excited i got over passing the winter soltice back in december? well imagine the glory i feel basking in the glow of an extra hour of daylight each day. that's right. the days are almost as long as they should be and spring is in the air. ahhhh. yes, i've been waiting.

i pulled my bike out of the shed last weekend, freshened up the air in the tires and stretched my legs for a bit. lisa met me in ewing and we drove up to washington's crossing and took the canal path for a bit. it was the first decent day in a while but the trail was still muddy and we rode through some snow in parts, which was cool. made me feel all rugged n shit.

now that the days are officially longer and the weather is warming, i'm just itching to be on the bike more often and have to make time for that... which brings me to my next point - this week i'm planning on commuting to work via pedal power. i absolutely hate the car commute, and my job is only 9 miles via backroads from my gf's apartment in hamilton - so i'm all about it. i'm a little nervous about it, but i think it's going to be good and i'm really excited to give it a shot. the commute is much further from ewing - just over 15 miles. which is actually do-able, but the route needs to be tested and timed.. and then there's always the prospect of getting home at night - being tired in the dark is only half the concern.. crappy or distracted drivers are the other half..

oh - also, one month ago i was in new orleans for fat tuesday. first of all, let me tell you that though the trip itself was amazing(!), here is not the forum for such expression. rather, i'm writing a few words about how i have not yet written any words regarding this. i plan a post later this week about nola bike-luv in all it's various forms. i just wanted to let you know that i haven't forgotten.

ok. i'm going to wish you all a happy spring - we've made it through yet another winter and it's time to thaw out, warm up, and get friggin going.

Pedalin’ through the Punkin' Patch…

Last Sunday morning, I woke up and stretched my legs to see how they felt after my ride and subsequent fall the previous day. My knees didn’t hurt that badly and there was no ache in my quads – all good signs. I checked out the grossness that had developed on my left knee, applied some anti-grossness ointment and band-aids and it was game on.

This particular Sunday, October 4th, was a long time coming. I decided in August that I wanted to set an end-of-season goal ride for myself, and SIBA's Pumpkin Patch Pedal was it..

The drive to Jamesburg was filled with pounding music, butterflies flittering in my gut and things to remember – like that this is a ride, not a race and most of all, the importance of stretching. I’m used to just kind of jumping on the bike and going, but considering both my fall the day before and the distance which was laid out in front of me, stretching would be important.

I was excited as I pulled into Thompson Park and finally found a parking spot – the place was packed with hundreds of cars and riders of every shape and stripe. There were the serious looking guys with fancy carbon road bikes and matching outfits.. all the way down to middle aged ladies and families with children on mountain bikes.

I signed in, got my goodie bag which includes this here coveted long-sleeve shirt, a water bottle (which will never be used for actual drinking water because it’s not BPA-free), a yellow paper bracelet which indicated that I purchased a post-ride turkey sub and my cue sheet.

This cue sheet will later become the infamous device which added an hour and eight or ten extra miles to the ride. Don’t worry, I’ll explain shortly.

You couldn’t have asked for nicer conditions. It was 72 degrees with sunny blue skies marbled with cotton. This day was perfection. My mom used to work around this area so I was familiar with the first stretch of the course. I remember going to work with her when I was a kid and always loving this one stretch road where sunlight shone through trees and mottled the pavement. I smiled to myself, remembering childhood, as I rode it.

I’ve gotten used to riding alone, I actually enjoy it most of the time. Maybe it’s an only child thing, but I think the individuality of this sport is one of the things that has drawn me so heavily to riding. Sometimes I ride with my friend’s husband, but that’s only happened a few times this season. So, you can imagine my pleasant surprise when about 12 miles into the course, one woman with road bike and fancy jersey and all, said that she lost her partner somewhere and she would ride with me for a while.

Sharon was the only black person I saw on the entire ride, and she was freakin' awesome. She’s a special education teacher for the Philadelphia public school system. “God bless ya,” I said. We rode side-by-side and chatted through Millstone and Upper Freehold, while I had the ability to chat anyway, before the hills came.

After that, this is the view I had of her most of the time.

She made me feel good because most of the time people don’t talk to me on the road. Ya see, I’m on a hybrid bike (looks like a road bike and a mountain bike had a baby) and although I am the new owner of fancy-pants bike shorts, I don’t have one of those special jerseys and wear New Balances instead of clip-system bike shoes. Please, this sport is expensive enough, one step at a time, thanks!

Sharon told me that she did her first century ride on a hybrid. This made me very happy.

Somewhere aftercrossing Route 537, Sharon dropped me. My legs were aching – not even my knees, but my legs. The churn was slowing and I realized just how dumb it was for me to have gone on the ride with Heath the day before. And there were hills. Whoever said this ride was “flat as a board” should punch themselves in the face. They weren’t terrible hills, but my muscles were just too fatigued. I did keep it going though.. even if it was embarrassingly slow.

I made it to which would turn out to be the only rest stop, 25 miles into the course, in about two hours. This was in New Egypt, but the sign said Plumsted. I need a proper map to tell the difference. Sharon was there, smiling at me when I arrived. Her partner (I don't think she's a gay, the other lady was just a riding partner) was there waiting for her. I shoved some bagel wedges into my mouth, washed them down with Gatorade, refilled my camelbak and was off again. Sharon asked if I wanted to ride with them. I said, “I’m sure ya’ll be passing me soon, this way I get a head start.”

It’s true. Sharon came and went in the hills on the way back.
This ride went through some gorgeous central Jersey farmland. I took some random snaps as I passsed by. I want to point out that ironically, I did not see one single pumpkin patch. The farmland looked something like this.


So, I signed up for the 50 mile ride (called a half-century in those circles). The cue sheet showed it was 53.4 miles but in reality, I rode 61.5. Why, you ask? Because one of the turns on the cue sheet was shittily marked. Short answer is we (Sharon, myself and this other guy Larry) all made a right when we should’ve made a left. It wasn’t until we got to Route 537 again that I was like, no, there is something wrong here. We had already crossed this road twice and since we were on our way back north, we shouldn’t be crossing it again. We turned around and headed back up. I say up, because there were many hills involved here, which added to be being pissed off about the situation.

When we got back up to that spot where we zigged instead of zagged, there were about 15 other riders on cell phones trying to figure out the right way to go – so it wasn’t just us. I bitched to the people at SIBA (Staten Island Bicycle Association) about this later. It added something like an extra 9 miles, and about an hour, onto my ride. And though I was sporting fancy pants bike shorts, they only delayed the inevitable ass-to-cheese-grater feeling. Also, due to their crappy directions, the next/last rest stop for the half-century was closed by the time we got there.

I pounded a Powerbar on the side of the road while watching purdy horses on some course. This was mile 41 on the cue sheet but 51 in real life, and I just needed to give my butt a rest for a minute.

The remainder of the ride was mostly mine in solitude. I kept playing leap frog with two ladies who were maybe in their 50’s. They were nice. My legs were moving slowly, my quads screamed at me for not resting the day before and my ass was absolutely killing me. Luckily the weather was amazing.

I realized as I got closer and closer to Thompson Park where my day started, that due to the cue sheet error, I had already accomplished my goal, now I just needed to finish and it didn’t matter how slow I was.

I pulled into the park and I couldn’t believe I had actually done it. Five hours and fifty-three seconds (5:00:53) after the start, I finished. I didn’t crash. My spokes didn’t fly off the wheel like shrapnel-y needles. I just finished. I rolled up to the gazebo where they were handing out the post-ride Subway lunch (my friends know that I will cut a bitch for a turkey sub) and saw Sharon, her ride partner Carol, and Larry all sitting on benches. They smiled and congratulated me on finishing my first ride. Sharon clapped as took off my helmet, before I limped over to the gazebo. I realized it was first time I looked at any of their full faces, sans helmets and sunglasses. I will never forget them.

Two dudes played acoustic guitar next to the gazebo. They played songs that seemed cliché but made me smile while I was horking down my turkey sub. At the moment, song titles escape me, but they played stuff like “Ramblin Man” and “On the Road Again”. If I could muster the energy to walk, I would’ve requested “Life is a Highway."

This was my first organized ride and for me it meant more than that – it was like a rite of passage. Next time, and yes, there will be a next time I’ll plan things out differently so that I can finish just as strong as I start.

Maybe next year I’ll do the century. Yeah. Goals we set are goals we get.

Don’t call her a bitch

I’ve said it before – cancer is a bitch - but not only is the disease way worse than that, it actually gives a bad name to all the real bitches out there . I have a lot of strong-headed lady friends, so I know what I’m talking about in this department.

I found Livestrong by accident. I was on a page, trying to measure out how far I went on one of my first rides this summer when there was an ad banner for the Livestrong Challenge in Philly. “Go ahead, pick a fight” it read. Sure, I had heard of Lance Armstrong, his foundation and I had definitely seen those ubiquitous yellow bracelets floating around, but I always thought it was some elitist jock thing – a club to which I would never belong. But something compelled me to click on that link and read more about the LS Challenge, and LAF itself. I joined livestrong.com (different from the .org) and created a profile – using it to help me lose some weight and get into shape.

There were different length rides to choose from, but I was still riding my boys’ size mountain bike at the time and had never ridden with a group before, so I was a little intimidated about signing up to ride – but I did see that they needed volunteers. I saw that as my opportunity to get involved and contribute to something that I so believed in. My pops is fighting cancer, and I was doing it just as much for him as for myself. You see, I am my father’s daughter to a “T” (is that how you write that?) and with the medical history of my family, I have to be very careful.

I signed up for a few shifts on Friday and on Sunday, the day of the ride itself. I showed up on Friday to help assemble the goodie bags that participants would get upon check in with some coupons, trial products and advertisements from big sponsors. The volunteer coordinator, I think her name was Lindsay, was organizing two tables of mostly moms and kids who were working in an assembly line – each one adding a new piece to the stack and passing it down. Since I didn’t bring anyone with me, I volunteered to be the one cleaning up garbage and restocking cards and supplies to each of the two assembly stations as they needed it. It worked out perfectly because I am skilled at opening and breaking down boxes with pocket knives and didn’t have to be sandwiched between two kids who would wonder who the hell this beefy lady was and why she didn’t know anyone.

Also, I got this awesome t-shirt (also pictured above)which had to be washed because it was a million degrees out on Friday and I was running around and sweating my buns off, and I had to wear this shirt on Sunday:

I got to PowerStop #2 on Sunday about a half-hour later than I was supposed to (if you know me, you know that this is par for the course) but lucky for me, the ride actually started later than scheduled and I didn’t miss anything. Of course, being late also meant that I had no idea what I was supposed to do and too embarrassed to ask anyone. Did I mention that I was late because I was partying the night before and was hung over? Way to Livestrong, Cattio, I thought to myself, and desperately wished that I got more coffee.. I was alone again and didn’t know why I was here.
PowerStop #2 was one of eight total stops on the 100 mile ride where riders could come in, stop at a portapotty, grab a bite to eat, drink, (not necessarily in that order) bring their rig over to a mechanic or see someone at the medic tent for a wrap or some Bengay.

The stop I was stationed at (click here for the course map) was located right before the route splits off, and if you’re on your way back, right after it comes back together. It was located on a gradient, which means that on your way into the course, you were going uphill, on your way back from the course, you had to cross traffic on the downhill to get into the stop.

The folks who gathered at this stop cheered like hell when they saw the first chunk of riders to come up the hill. I was clapping, still hung over, not much for yelling or cheering yet. After a small pile up right at the mouth of the stop, one of the volunteers began directing traffic to get riders to go up and park their bikes at the rack instead of just stopping in the travel lane. For more than afew minutes, it was absolute mayhem.

After the knot of riders thinned out, the woman who was directing traffic needed to go do something else, so someone asked me to step in.

“Are you working here?” she asked.

“In theory,” I replied.

She explained what I needed to do and I went out and cured my hangover with heat, sun and soon – screaming. It didn’t take long for me to find a groove here. I realized that this would be the last rest stop for riders on their way down to the finish, and for most of them it was a hilly, ugly course. (For accounts of the ride itself, visit FatCyclist – Elden, aka Fatty, is an amazing writer and I have been following his blog for a few months now.)

The lady who was running the show (I think her name was Maureen) over there was from UPenn, they sponsored the PowerStop. She wondered how I, completely alone, came to volunteer at their stop. I just picked something off the list, I said. She smiled with surprise and said she was happy to have me.

I thought everyone could use a cheerleader at this point. I clapped so much, so hard that the next day the knuckles on the palm of my left hand were swollen and painful to the touch. I yelled so much, things like, “good job, rider! keep it going, rider! come on in, rider!” anything to keep these guys and gals encouraged.. I recognized some people coming down who I saw going up, someone wearing an Eagles jersey who was really a Giants fan (poor guy, I asked him if he lost a bet, oddly he said no). I saw a bike messenger sporting a full beard, sporting his Chrome messenger bag – looking fully out of place amidst a sea of bright colored spandex and lycra.. When I saw him coming back down I pointed and yelled, “yeah! there’s my messenger!” and the biggest smile unfurled across his face.

I also pissed off some locals. See, coming back down was really dangerous for these guys because they had to cross traffic on a hill, so I got out in the middle of the road with my hand up to oncoming traffic until a line of riders passed or ducked into the PowerStop. One lady who was trying to get in to see her son as he passed almost ran over myself and a guy named Dan who was helping me – her Volvo barreled right over the orange cones we had set out on the grates at the mouth of the entrance, a cone got wedged up under her bumper and it took a few minutes for a volunteer to dislodge the thing. She crushed the cup of water I had sitting there on the asphalt. I was happy it wasn’t myself, Dan or a rider she decided to run over. By the way, her son didn’t show up at the stop for another 40 minutes or so, so she stood there, eyeing up the road – I hope she was embarrassed – she could’ve killed someone.

The whole time leading up to the Livestrong Challenge I was thinking, I’ll volunteer this year and ride next year. I thought that I would love to be able to pick a fight with cancer by rocking the century. Except something changed my mind: riders were saying thank you. A lot of them. “Thank you for being here,” they would say. “Thank you for volunteering.” and I said, “you’re doing all the heavy lifting, thank you for riding.” I think I might continue to volunteer next year – do the exact same thing I did this year because by the end of the day, not only was I pretty damn good at it, but I realized it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve done in a long time.